So we
started out early from Arusha and had about two and a half hours to go to our
first stop: Lake Manyara! A national park known for its diversity, it has 11 or
something like that different ecosystems, so that means many different animals.
Here we got to see elephants walking really close to us, on the road in front
of us and things like that it was really cool, and lots of monkey, the vervet
monkey and baboon, also wildebeests, buffalos and zebras. So this was like a
first taste of what a safari can be and we all agreed it was a good start
though we didn’t see many of the things we really wanted to. That night we
slept at a camp close to the national park. I got two minutes of hot water in a
shower and it felt like I was in heaven, though I have almost gotten used to
bathing out of a bucket. Today we had also visited a Maasai camp, which was a
good experience to have and to know how the live in polygamy. The reason it
works for them is that the wives all have different houses with their children
so the husband just visits whatever house he feels like for the night, but I’m
sure it reduces jealousy some. They have this dance where they hop up really
high and that is basically all they do – while they are singing, but it was
actually pretty cool. The next day we went to the Serengeti It was a really
long drive and we drove through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area on the way so
almost all the way was really bad roads. We were going to be in the Ngorongoro
crater on Sunday, today we just looked down from the rim. On and on we went and
at last we were at the gate Naabi Hill heading into the actual Serengeti. We
still had three hours of daylight left, during that time we saw lions,
leopards, hippos, more baboons, giraffes, ostriches, impalas and other deer
like animals. It was amazing to see the sunset in the background at the end,
but it was almost beaten by all the stars. The next day we had to get up really
early in the morning so that we could see the sunrise, which was incredible.
Today we added cheetahs and crocodile to our repertoire. Then we headed back to
the Ngorongoro crater again where we would be sleeping at the rim, which we had
been told would be really cold, which it was. We ended the night by sitting
around a fire playing the story game where one story is told, but each person
adds something new to it. There was one with a giraffe who had lost her spots
and went everywhere to get them and asked everyone, the hippo for mud the
leopard for its spots, and then it became a drunk because no one had any for
her and all the other giraffes didn’t want to be friends with her. But
miraculously someone else ended up loving her, but when they on their honeymoon
in Hawaii the giraffe learned that it was only because he didn’t have any spots
himself! That was the least crazy story another had pandahippos children with
low self-esteem and a third a hippo that fell in love with a Danish mermaid from
Italy that couldn’t swim. The next day we got up really early again but it was
so cloudy we didn’t get to see the sunrise. I had really looked forward to this
because the crater is known for its wide variety of animals and there was a
chance of seeing the black rhino. Though unfortunately we only saw that very
far away. But we also saw flamingos, jackals, hyenas, lions with their kill and
another thing I had really wanted to see: herds of zebras and wildebeests,
enormous herds. Descending into the crater it felt like we were going to
Jurassic park or something like that only with savannah animals instead of
dinosaurs. We still had a very long way ahead of us so after five hours we
called it quits; you can only be in the crater for six hours at a time so it
was close to that. The people in my jeep I have already told you about but I
want to tell some more; Barbara or Babsi goes to a high school with tons of
sport, so much in fact that she is getting really tired of it all and she’s got
one year left. Her boyfriend is Julian he’s the one that arranged the safari,
he pretended to be his father Jo, a travel agent, to get us a bit of a
discount, but the charade didn’t last very long. He also has one year of high
school left, but he’s in a business school because he wants to be an
entrepreneur. His mother is from Singapore. Daniel is Barbara’s half-brother
he’s a cleaning supervisor at a hotel, though he doesn’t do any cleaning
himself he has to check all the rooms are clean, he used to do a lot of
waitering as you can see when he picks up plates. He really wants to do
something more important though or something more fun. He was a degree in hotel
something that he needs to put to good use, he was the oldest by a few months
on the trip with his 25 years. They are from Vienna, Austria and going back
tonight/tomorrow early. Also German speaking is Theresa from Germany she’s
wants to study medicine in the fall, she’ll be here for two months, I would be
able to say more about her if she didn’t speak German all the time – I think I
missed all the good stuff. From Italy we have Antonella and Mathilde, Antonella
is a doctor of a few months and is about to specialize and Mathilde had two
more years left before she can specialize. Antonella will be the kind of doctor
who will be able to make a terminally ill believe he’ll live to a 120 years.
Mathilde will be the supporting one that will really be able to make you come
to terms with the facts the right way. Antonella though doesn’t want to come
into contact with the living in a hospital, she wants to do post mortems and be
like the ones in CSI. Antonella was also the one that came up with the phrase
for our team: “wonderful!” It can be said about anything, even when it is not
wonderful, maybe especially then, she’s from Rome, but studies in Sienna. She
usually goes to hear and see the pope every Sunday as she lives close to the
Vatican. Mathilde is from Milan and has what sounds like a really sweet
boyfriend. Six hours later we were back in Arusha having a barbeque that had
been an on off thing, but was now definitely on, though I must say the dinners
on the safari were better than this. But it was a goodbye dinner so it was nice
none the less. In the other jeep were Rachel and Jason from Canada, Sif from
Denmark, though she didn’t want to speak Danish with me even when it was just
the two of us she’d speak English which made it all kind of awkward, Maia from
France, Eduardo and Valeria from Italy and Margaret from Ireland. The three
first mentioned works with PA in Dar. It
was nice to sleep in my own bed that evening.
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